


the whole thing would fracture

by light_loves_the_dark



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Heavy Angst, bad usage of tenses, daisy johnson is the most powerful character in the mcu, heavy references to doctor who, i've wanted to do this story for so long, phil coulson is the man who loves her, seriously this is really sad, the time loop where everything went wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 21:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17454698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_loves_the_dark/pseuds/light_loves_the_dark
Summary: Phil Coulson is dying. It would’ve been a tiny ripple in an ocean of a universe, except for the powerful warrior who loves him.Who grieves him.-AKA the one where daisy and coulson are in love, and daisy becomes the destroyer of worlds.





	the whole thing would fracture

**Author's Note:**

> i imagine that this is a time loop that happens and then it gets reset so they do end up doing the right thing. hopefully better than the actual show. 
> 
> daisy is amazing and compassionate so this is a bit of a stretch for her character, but i love the concept so i'm doing it anyway.
> 
> if you haven't seen the doomsday ep where the doctor and rose say goodbye in doctor who, this could be a little confusing, but basically rose jokingly suggests that the doctor could destroy the universe so they could be together. it was never a serious suggestion, but this is an exploration of what could drive someone to that point. 
> 
> enjoy!

**the whole thing would fracture**

 

_i_

 

The world goes up in flames. Buildings shudder and streets crack and at the center of it all is a goddess, they say. Or maybe, others whisper when there’s nothing left, it was just a girl.

But though this is how the world ends, it does not explained how that ending starts.

 

_ii_

 

“I couldn’t let you stay behind,” he admits once she has forgiven him.

They are curled together on the threadbare couch in his room, taking a moment of peace in the madness. Coulson’s head rests on Daisy’s collarbone; she notices that his eyes are closed and his breathing, deep. She marvels at the trust that refuses to crack between them, even after he brought her back against her will. Even after she had made so many mistakes.

“I couldn’t let you give your life up.”

“Even if I quake the world apart?” She asks, keeping her voice light on purpose. Coulson peers up at her, his mouth set in a thin line.

He shakes his head slowly. “You couldn’t, Daisy. I know you like I know myself, and you couldn’t.”

“Anything can happen under the right circumstances,” she reminds him. The words don’t sound like hers. They sound like May’s, like the worried looks Fitzsimmons have given her, like anything could make her break and then they’d all go up in smoke.

Coulson sits up, brushing a gentle kiss over her lips. “Then I can’t imagine those circumstances,” he whispers against her mouth.

 _I can,_ she thinks, pressing her thumb against his pulse as she succumbs to his kisses.

 

_iii_

 

Phil Coulson is dying. It would’ve been a tiny ripple in an ocean of a universe, except for the powerful warrior who loves him.

Who grieves him.

 

_iv_

 

This thing between them isn’t new. 

After a mission a year or so ago, after she became Daisy but before all of this alien and LMD nonsense swept them up, she had kissed him after a mission with no qualms and no anxiety. They had both known for a while, and she had simply gotten tired of waiting for a good time. In their life together, there are no good times.

The others know and don’t know; May had given them both the shovel talk so discreetly that they had not even realized until months ago. Fitzsimmons could never imagine Coulson as anything other than a father figure, though Jemma had pushed and pushed her when she refused to go out with Lincoln.

The mission was not difficult or life threatening, only cleaning up after the Avengers ravaged a Hydra cell. She had found him in his office afterwards, checking to make sure he was in a good mental place before pressing a gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth. He had looked at her with such awe that she felt undeserving of his gaze; her only consolidation was that she knew she was looking at him the same way, and Phil deserved that look more than anyone she had ever known.

Later, in his bunk, he told her that he loved her. That he’d do anything for her. That in their line of work, it was dangerous to care about her as much as he did, but he didn’t care.

She didn’t need to say it back, and truly, she couldn’t. Something like dread curled in her stomach at the idea of choosing between him and the world. It was a feeling that would retreat the next time he kissed her, seconds later, but it wouldn’t go away.

And, Daisy thinks months later, that should have told her everything she needed to know.

 

_v_

 

Once upon a time, there was a warrior princess and the strong, wise man who would die for her.

When his body hit the ground, she could hear an inhuman wail pierce the air around her. It takes her several long minutes to realize that it comes - continues to come - from her.

 

_vi_

 

After Coulson collapses, forcing him to tell them the truth about his infection, Daisy doesn’t speak to him for two days. She had seen the beginning of the black lines marking his skin before they had been beamed up to space, but after he had assured her that he was just a leftover reminder of the drug that had brought him back to life, she hadn’t questioned him further. She has had no reason to see him without a shirt on since that moment, with space and the imminent doom they were facing, and to now to touch the jagged black lines, raised and inflamed, on his skin… well, it is more than she can take.

Coulson is the best person she has ever known, so he gives her space. He cannot help the longing looks he gives her in team meetings, making her feel a bit like she is kicking an already injured puppy, but he doesn’t complain because he knows that he has hurt her a lot lately.

She knows he loves her, that he wanted to give them as much time as possible without death looming above them, hands outstretched to take him sooner than they deserve. But she loves him so much that it nearly kills her to imagine him as anything other than alive and healthy, and she’s worried that any honest conversation they have now will break her.

And oh. It does.

Her sobs are ugly and the room shakes when she falls into his arms, cursing at the world and how unfair it is that they will lose each other within mere months of finding each other. He catches her, as he always does, as he won’t do for much longer.

“Daisy,” he says, just her name, over and over and over. “Daisy - Daisy - Daisy,” he croons, like he is memorizing how it sounds.

“Don’t leave,” she orders when they have finally curled on the bed together, entwined so tightly that she can hear his heartbeat.

She can tell he wants to tell her that he isn’t going anywhere. He even starts to, before he swallows the words - because they are a lie.

 

_vii_

 

Before she blinks out of existence, she wonders if there is a heaven. She never has before, but suddenly it seems important. Maybe the time loop will begin again, but there is an equal possibility that she has doomed them all.

She wonders if, instead of heaven, there will be just him, waiting for her.

No, she thinks. That _is_ heaven.

 

_viii_

 

She was a young woman with a different name when the wheel had started to turn.

“You’ve never seen Doctor Who?” Fitz had half-shouted, shocked. Skye had winced; she had never had a home, had the time, and anyone who just wanted to curl up on the couch and-

“And I don’t even have an excuse,” she had said wryly. There was no need for truths with these hyper-intelligent, privileged SHIELD types.

Jemma and Fitz, _married now_ , ushered her between them. They had begun with the ninth doctor, and hours upon hours later, only the hum of the plane witnessed Skye’s soft tears when the Doctor and Rose said goodbye on a cold beach. Jemma and Fitz were sprawled out, asleep, blind to the seed that had been planted.

 

_(i)_

 

_“Can I touc-”_

Daisy reaches for the body of the man who had given her everything: his trust, his love, his companionship. She hears the sound of laughter. It is Talbot, and there is some grief in his voice but she thinks he laughs mostly at the irony of it all. She finds she is unable to lay a single finger on Coulson; she is terrified of the answers the vibration of his bones will give her.

_“I’m still just an image. No touch.”_

His body has given up. He has not died in battle, just merely died. His fate breaks Daisy’s already fragile heart. She has heard the portants of the future, and the earth trembles in response.

_“Can’t you come through properly?”_

Talbot has stopped laughing. He is trying to come towards her, desperation and worry contorting his previously confident expression. Daisy does not think about May or Fitzsimmons or Mack and Elena. She hears screams of pain and the vibrations of the buildings around her, seconds and miles and thousands of miles away. She cannot stop, and more, she doesn’t want to stop.

_“The whole thing would fracture. Two universes would collapse.”_

Everything is quiet now. Daisy marvels at the strength of the Doctor, fictional though he may be. If Rose had been dead, she wonders, what then? What does the strength of a universe-ending being come to in such grief?

She had loved. It had been such a wondrous miracle. He would want her to be strong, but she refuses. Maybe in the next time loop, when they begin again, she imagines things might be different, but in this moment it is too late, and she cannot imagine a world without Phil Coulson.

“So?” Daisy whispers, and she smiles, closing her eyes.

 

_(rose’s ‘so?’ had been a passing impossibility. daisy’s erodes the world to dust.)_

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> oof. lmk what you think!


End file.
